Celebrate Arbor Day 2022
Keep Pearland Beautiful will host Arbor Day on January 22, 2022, passing out two 3-5 gallon trees per household at the Stella Roberts Recycling Center (5800 Magnolia Pkwy). At this event KPB will be giving away 2 trees, until supplies run out. 300 trees will be distributed, including: American Beautyberry, American Sycamore, American Elm, Pecan, Sugarberry and Waxmyrtle. Tree descriptions below or view 2022 Tree Guide pdf. Tree give-away will begin at 9:00am, 2 free trees per household w/ proof of residency, but donations are appreciated.
KPB Members are able to reserve their trees for early pickup. Email will be sent with link to reserve 2 trees or call 281-489-2795 or email ltollefson@mykpb.org.
In addition to the historical significance of trees there are many environmental and modern day benefits. Pearland is proud to be recognized as a “Tree City USA” community. We benefit from our trees in multiple ways. First, people are attracted to a community with beautiful landscaping that includes trees for shade. In city urban spaces and your own neighborhood, a thriving tree canopy is important to keeping temperatures down in the summer. Trees provide shelter and food for our diverse bird population. Planting trees around your home increases the energy efficiency of your air conditioner in the summer months. And finally, everyone benefits psychologically from having green spaces with trees.
Help us create a thriving tree canopy by planting proper trees in the proper place at your residence or volunteer with Keep Pearland Beautiful. For more information about choosing and planting trees visit www.arborday.org and refer to ‘Right Tree, Right Place’. To find out more information about how you can help Keep Pearland Beautiful, contact us at (281) 489-2795 or visit www.pearlandrecycles.com.
Secondary Name: French mulberry, sourbush, bunchberry, or purple beauty-berry
Leaf Type: Deciduous
Texas native: Yes
Firewise: Yes
Tree Description: Most often grows 3-5 ft. tall and usually just as wide, It can reach 9 ft. in height in favorable soil and moisture conditions. It has long, arching branches and yellow-green fall foliage, but its most striking feature is the clusters of glossy, iridescent-purple fruit (sometimes white) which hug the branches at leaf axils in the fall and winter.
Range/Site Description: This plant is distributed throughout the southeastern United States from Texas and Oklahoma east to Maryland. It also grows in the Caribbean and northern Mexico.
Leaf: Leaves in pairs or in threes, blades half as wide as long and up to 9 inches long, ovate to elliptic, pointed or blunt at the tip and tapered to the base; margins coarsely toothed except toward the base and near the tip, teeth pointed or rounded; lower surface of young leaves covered with branched hairs.
Flower: Flowers small, pink, in dense clusters at the bases of the leaves, clusters usually not exceeding the leaf petioles.
Fruit: Fruit distinctly colored, rose pink or lavender pink, berrylike, about 1/4 inch long and 3/16 inch wide, in showy clusters, persisting after the leaves have fallen.
Bark: Bark light brown on the older wood, reddish brown on younger wood. Bark smooth, with elongate, raised corky areas (lenticels); twigs round to 4 sided, covered with branched hairs visible under a l0x hand lens.
Interesting Facts: In the early 20th century, farmers would crush the leaves and place them under the harnesses of horses and mules to repel mosquitoes.
Secondary Names: White Elm
Leaf Type: Deciduous
Texas Native: Yes
Firewise: Yes
Tree Description: A large tree to 90 feet tall and a trunk diameter to 3 feet, with a buttressed base and upright branches that form a spreading, vase-shaped crown.
Range/Site Description: Occurs across a vast area of the eastern U.S., into East and Central Texas, occurring naturally on well-drained soils along streams and rivers, but also planted widely as a shade tree.
Leaf: Alternate, simple, 4″ to 6″ long and 2″ to 3″ wide, oval or ovate in shape, tip drawn to a point, lopsided at the base, and double-toothed along the margin; leaf surface is either smooth or rough above and pubescent or smooth below, with raised veins.
Flower: Appearing before the leaves in early spring as small, greenish clusters on slender stalks in the axils of the leaves.
Fruit: An oval “samara” (winged fruit), with the seed portion in the center surrounded entirely by a wing with a fuzzy edge, ripening in the spring. The hairs on the samara margin and the deep notch in the end are characteristic of the species.
Bark: Dark gray, divided into irregular flat-topped, thick ridges, with narrow fissures between. An incision into an outer ridge of bark will show alternating brown and cream colored layers.
Wood: Heavy, hard, strong, tough, and difficult to split; once used for wheel hubs, saddle trees, veneer for baskets and crates, and furniture parts.
Similar Species: Slippery elm (Ulmus rubra) has very rough leaf surfaces and seeds without hairs on the margin.
Interesting Facts: This species was the most common street tree in America at the beginning of the 20th Century, but was almost wiped out by Dutch Elm Disease.
Secondary Names: American Planetree, Buttonwood
Leaf Type: Deciduous
Texas Native: Yes
Firewise: Yes
Tree Description: Considered the largest deciduous tree in North America, sycamore in Texas can exceed 100 feet in height and 4 feet in diameter, with a stout trunk and large, speading limbs that create an oval or round, spreading crown.
Range/Site Description: Occurs along streams and on rich bottomlands throughout eastern Texas, along the major rivers of the Edwards Plateau, and southwest to Maverick County.
Leaf: Simple, alternate, 4″ to 12″ wide and about as long, palmately-veined with the 3 to 5 main veins ending at the tip of a wide lobe, leaf edge coarsely-toothed between the lobes; leaves are bright green and smooth above, paler and pubescent below, turning brown in the fall. The base of the petiole is hollow and covers the winter bud.
Flower: Male and female flowers borne separately on the same tree as 0.5″ round clusters on short stalks.
Fruit: A spherical ball about 1″ in diameter, attached to a flexible stalk 3″ to 5″ long. During early spring the fruit balls break up into the individual nutlets, which have long hairs that help scatter them by wind or water.
Bark: The bark on the younger trunk and large limbs is smooth and greenish-gray or white in color; as the tree ages, the outer bark of limbs and trunk flakes off in irregular, brown patches and exposes the nearly white younger bark beneath.
Wood: Hard and moderately strong, but decays rapidly in the ground. Has been used for butcher blocks, rolling pins, crates, and tobacco boxes. Also used as a landscape tree.
Similar Species: Mexican sycamore (Platanus mexicana) has leaves with fewer teeth and silvery undersides that is sometimes planted as an ornamental in the drier portions of Texas.
Interesting Facts: A hybrid of sycamore — the London planetree (Platanus x acerifolia) — has been widely planted throughout the eastern U.S. as a street tree and can be distinguished from the native species by having 2 or even 3 round fruits on a single fruit stalk.
Secondary Name: Illinois nut
Leaf Type: Deciduous
Texas native: Yes
Firewise: Yes
Tree Description: This majestic tree is the largest of the hickories — growing 70 to 100 feet high — with a symmetrical, broadly oval crown.
Leaf: Alternate, compound, 12-20 inches long with 9-17 that are 3-8 inches long and 1-2 inches wide. On top they are smooth to slightly hairy an dark yellow green, slightly paler beneath.
Flower: The flowers are wind-pollinated, and monoecious, with staminate and pistillatecatkins on the same tree; the male catkins are pendulous, up to 18 cm (7.1 in) long; the female catkins are small, with three to six flowers clustered together.
Fruit: A pecan, like the fruit of all other members of the hickory genus, is not truly a nut, but is technically a drupe, a fruit with a single stone or pit, surrounded by a husk.
Bark: Thick, light brown to reddish brown, with narrow, irregular fissures, flattened and scaly.
Wood: Is used in agricultural implements, baseball bats, hammer handles, furniture, wall paneling, flooring, carvings, and firewood.
Interesting Facts: Pecans first became known to Europeans in the 16th century. The first Europeans to come into contact with pecans were Spanish explorers in what is now Mexico, Texas, and Louisiana.
Waxmyrtle–Morella cerifera
Secondary Names: Southern Bayberry, Wax Myrtle
Leaf Type: Evergreen
Texas Native: Yes
Firewise: Yes
Tree Description: A shrub or small, multi-trunked tree to 20 feet tall and a trunk to 6″ in diameter, with an open crown of light green foliage.
Range/Site Description: Streambanks, swamps, and seasonally wet areas in East Texas. Also used extensively as a landscape shrub or tree for parking lots, commercial, and residential landscapes throughout East and Central Texas.
Leaf: Simple, alternate, 2″ to 4″ long and 0.5″ to 0.75″ wide, obovate, with a few sharp teeth along the upper half of the leaf margin. Leaves are evergreen, light green in color, and shiny above.
Flower: Male and female flowers on separate trees. Male flowers appear along the twigs in spring as short, 0.5″long, yellowish catkins; female flowers similare in size and shape to the male flowers, but reddish.
Fruit: A round, light green drupe, about 0.1″ to 0.2″ in diameter, clustered along the twigs, each fruit covered with a thick coating of whitish wax.
Bark: Smooth, gray, blotched on older trunks, developing shallow fissures on only the largest trunks.
Wood: Bayberry candles are made from the wax; the bark and leaves reportedly have medicinal properties. Also used extensively as a landscape shrub or small tree.
Similar Species: Possumhaw (Ilex decidua) loses its leaves in the fall and has dull teeth (or none) along the leaf margins.
Interesting Facts: Waxmyrtle or bayberry leaves cann be used for seasoning meats, sauces, soups, stews and as a tea. The fruits have can be used for making candles for the wax and fragrance.
Sugarberry– Celtis laevigata var. laevigata
Secondary Names: Sugar Hackberry, Palo Blanco
Leaf Type: Deciduous
Texas Native: YES
Firewise: YES
Tree Description: A very common, large tree to 90 feet tall and a trunk 2 feet or more in diameter, though usually smaller in stature, with a round or oval crown of light green foliage.
Range/Site Description: Distributed widely over the eastern two-thirds of the state, sugraberry occurs most abundantly and attains greatest size in rich alluvial soils along riverbottoms, but thrives on many other well-drained soil types.
Leaf: Alternate, simple, 2.5″ to 5″ long and 1″ to 2″ wide, ovate or lanceolate, base lopsided, margin smooth or with a few remote teeth near the base, and long-pointed; leaf texture thin, smooth, with 3 prominent veins at the base beneath; leaf color light green turning yellow in fall.
Flower: Borne on slender stalks in the leaf axils in April or May, inconspicuous, greenish-white in color.
Fruit: Ripening in September as an orange-red, round or oblong drupe, about 0.25″ in diameter, on a stalk up to 0.5″ long, turning dark purple to black later in the fall.
Bark: Gray or gray-brown, smooth and thin at first, developing the distinctive warty bumps and ridges on larger trunks and branches.
Wood: Soft, weak, close-grained, and light yellow, used occasionally for flooring and furniture, but chiefly for fuelwood.
Similar Species: Netleaf hackberry (Celtis laevigata var. reticulata) has leaves 2″ long or less, with raised veins underneath that form a net-like appearance, occurring in West Texas; Lindheimer’s hackberry (C. lindheimeri) has grayish-green leaves and only occurs in Central Texas.
Interesting Facts: This species occurs in all ecoregions except Mountain Forests.
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